<<CONTENTS>>

1. Focus on Documentation
2. Two kinds of (and Reasons for) Documentation
3. What If "Appropriate Documentation" Doesn't Mean "Consistent"?
4. Documentation of Disability in Admissions
5. Documentation for Placement Testing
6. Documentation Through Self-Identification

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<< FOCUS ON DOCUMENTATION >>

This issue of the DAIS Newsletter is devoted to the topic of documentation. Recently, there has been much debate in professional circles as to what information should be contained in documentation in order to establish a diagnosis of ______ (fill in the blank). Perhaps, in focusing on the "what" of documentation, we have lost sight of the "why." The articles below do not discuss specifics of documentation -- test results, diagnostic instruments, and the like -- but rather examine the reasons for requesting documentation. It is hoped that this review will serve as a reminder that there is no ONE form of documentation that should be considered acceptable or can be demanded. Instead, different levels and types of documentation/verification are appropriate for different circumstances.

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<< TWO KINDS OF (AND REASONS FOR) DOCUMENTATION >>

Recently, a lot of folks have become very concerned about the nature of documentation to be provided by persons with disabilities in requesting protection under the law. But many of the questions that arise regarding documentation can be answered, in part, by being mindful of the distinct TYPES and PURPOSES of documentation, rather than the content. There are two kinds of documentation generally necessary/appropriate under 504/ADA -- documentation that the individual is a person with a disability and is therefore entitled to protection under the law, and documentation that the individual has need for accommodation in order to be protected from discrimination.

It is not atypical for the statement provided be a postsecondary institution regarding the need for documentation to say something like this:

"Individuals with disabilities are guaranteed certain protections and the right to accommodation based upon documentation. The documentation must indicate that the disability substantially limits some major life activity."

Apples and oranges. Individuals with disabilities are guaranteed the right to equal access under the law; individual with disabilities do not have a right to accommodation. They have a right to be protected from discrimination. If an accommodation must be provided so that the individual does not suffer discrimination, then the individual has the right to equal access as provided through that accommodation. If the documentation indicates that the disability substantially limits some major life activity, it establishes that this IS a person with a disability. It does NOT establish that the individual has a need for, or a right to, accommodation.

Note that this is a discussion of documentation of DISABILITY. Someone recently reminded me that there may also be a need to document eligibility. This service provider was asked to provide a sign language interpreter for a deaf athlete who, because of unresolved grade issues from a former institution, was not eligible for participation under NCAA rules. The young man was NOT an "otherwise qualified person with a disability" when it came to athletics, although he was certainly eligible for accommodation in the classroom as a duly-enrolled student.

As will be discussed below, there are many reasons for which an individual may wish to establish himself/herself as a person with a disability and request protection under the law. I would submit that the nature of documentation necessary may be as variable as the PURPOSE for which the documentation is required. In the field of disability services, we typically use the phrase "need-to-know in connection with how much information can be shared with whom. People should be given only such information as they have a "need-to-know" about a person with a disability -- that is, only that information which is necessary in order for them to respond differently or appropriately. The same concept -- 'What would you do differently given more information?" -- may be useful in deciding what the nature of the documentation should be in various circumstances.

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<< WHAT IF "APPROPRIATE DOCUMENTATION" DOESN'T MEAN "CONSISTENT?" >>

Let's start with documentation necessary in order to establish that a student has a disability and has need for services. Recently, there was extensive discussion on the DSSHE-L Listserv about what kind of documentation, from whom, would be appropriate. Questions about what tests go into a good diagnosis of LD, or how current documentation must be for people with non-visible impairments was not the focus of this particular discussion. The question that triggered the on-line debate had to do with the documentation necessary for a student with a mobility impairment.

Several individuals suggested that in order to be consistent, if one was going to ask for extensive documentation from outside sources for students with non-visible disability, one must also ask for outside corroboration for students with visible disability. The suggestion was that anything less opened the door for concerns of disparate treatment among persons with disabilities. I don't believe that is true.

I think documentation that the individual is a person with a disability can sometimes be provided by designated institutional personnel. An intake interview with a wheelchair user in which s/he indicates a T-5 spinal cord injury should be enough to establish that this IS a person with a disability. Someone on the list recounted a story of a student who rented a wheelchair and showed up demanding accommodation. Besides the fact that this is certainly an aberration and not the norm, the suggestion is not that the determination of the existence of a mobility impairment be on the basis of the existence of a wheelchair. Rather, such determination should be made on the basis of common sense and good judgment. If the student walked into my office and asserted that he/she had a mobility impairment that I could not discern by observation, and then returned several hours later in a wheelchair with the same statement, I would certainly ask that this be corroborated by medical evidence. It is not a double standard to demand the documentation for THIS individual for a mobility impairment when I don't demand it of others -- it is common sense based on the information before me. On the other hand, a letter from a physician indicating that a student is under treatment for diabetes, or epilepsy, or macular degeneration, may be required as verification to establish that the individual is part of the protected class. Common sense would dictate, in this case, that outside verification is necessary because I cannot verify the condition through my observations.

If we adopt a policy of using professional judgment and good sense to verify that the individual IS a person with a disability and thus entitled to protection under the law, then what about the second level of documentation -- establishing the need for accommodations. The service provider shouldn't need a letter from a physician to clarify that the individual who is a wheelchair user must have physical access to various locations. Once again, common sense says that if you have accepted the individual as a wheelchair user, then you do not need outside verification of the need for appropriate accommodations to serve the functional limitation created by that wheelchair use. WHY WOULD YOU ASK SOMEONE TO GET OUTSIDE VERIFICATION when, given such verification, you wouldn't do anything differently (i.e., provide any accommodation that you would not have provided given the information you already have?). IF the individual is asking for some kind of accommodation the need for which is NOT intuitively obvious, THEN you ask for outside verification (such as a paraplegic who is requesting a notetaker or scribe). Don't be afraid to ask for more information from appropriate sources if/when more information is needed to determine appropriate action, but don't ask for more information or confirmation if it isn't necessary.

Is it inconsistent to ask for detailed documentation for someone with a non-apparent disability when you don't ask for the same from a person with an apparent disability? I don't think so -- not if your policies/procedures are written to cover "students with disabilities" and not "students with learning disabilities or "students with visual impairments," and so on. A policy statement such as this might be appropriate:

"In order to establish that one is a student with a disability and has a need for accommodation, the student must provide adequate documentation from an appropriate source as to their status as a person with a disability and the functional limitations created by the disability that may be addressed through accommodation."

Such a statement requires the same thing of all students with disabilities (i.e., it is consistent) and yet may require a student with a learning disability to provide extensive documentation while the student in a wheelchair may be able to provide adequate documentation of the need for accessible classes through observation and interview.

The laws (504/ADA) really don't speak to requiring documentation or what level of documentation is necessary. Those are decision we have made over time, in order to comply appropriately with what we understood to be the letter of the law. Granted, we live in a litigious society and everyone is worried about covering themselves. If it makes the service provider or the institutional attorney more comfortable to institute a policy that requires documentation even in such circumstances, it is understandable. But is it necessary in order to appropriately provide services? I don't think so.

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<< DOCUMENTATION OF DISABILITY IN ADMISSIONS >>

Many institutions have established committees that review admissions information for students in special circumstances. This may include students with disabilities who are NOT "otherwise qualified" (that is, they do not meet the standard, stated criteria for admission), and are requesting special consideration of their bid for admission because they believe that the disability has impacted on their meeting the standard criteria in the typical fashion. What kind of documentation of disability would be necessary/appropriate in this situation? What do you need to know?

If and when the student is accepted, the student will be entitled to no more or less than any other student -- equal access under the law. The student is not entitled to accommodations as a result of being acknowledged to have a disability. The student is entitled to protection from discrimination. LATER, he/she will have to demonstrate whether some accommodation is necessary in order to have equal access to ongoing educational opportunities (and that will be demonstrated by providing complete documentation of such need to the appropriate source on campus as discussed above!). For now, the student wants equal access to the admissions process/decisions. You need only have as much documentation of disability as is necessary to fulfill that obligation. For students with some disabilities, that may be provided by self-report or a letter from a physician (medical conditions) or from high school personnel. While I would NOT accept an IEP as documentation of disability or need for accommodation for purposes of ongoing provision of protection/accommodation to a student on campus, I probably WOULD accept an IEP as documentation of the fact that the student was acknowledged and served as a student with a disability during the high school career that brought them to this threshold of admission.

How should such information be used in the admissions process? It would be appropriate for someone with disability knowledge/background to sit on the committee that considers exceptions to admission and to be the primary source for input regarding students with disabilities. In such cases, IF the information provided (scanty as it is) is enough to explain the circumstances surrounding the exception, then it would seem unnecessary to demand more detailed documentation at this point in time.

For instance, the student submits an IEP that indicates he/she has been diagnosed as LD and has received support through the LD specialist throughout high school. The student meets all other requirements, but has not taken 2 years of a foreign language because this school district didn't think it was fair to ask these poor learning disabled students to work that hard. The exception being requested is a "by" on the foreign language requirement. You do not need detailed documentation of the learning disability to make a decision in these circumstances. It doesn't matter whether the student will qualify as a student with a learning disability and/or be eligible for accommodation once accepted. The student has established that he/she was regarded as disabled in high school and your decision to provide an exception should be based on that perception of disability. The same would hold true of a student who met all requirements but had missed the standard cutoff on the SAT by 25 points. An acknowledgment that this student has been diagnosed and served as learning disabled in high school and took the SAT with extended time may be all the information necessary to make a decision one way or another. If it is NOT enough information -- if the decision that a student can be competitive would hinge on more information about the circumstances under which he/she received those low-but-acceptable grades (was accommodation provided or not? when was the diagnosis made and have grades improved since then?), then the committee should consider -- and would have the right to ask for -- more information. WHAT DO YOU HAVE A NEED-TO-KNOW IN ORDER TO ANSWER THE ADMISSIONS QUESTION? Everything else is moot at this point in time.

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<<DOCUMENTATION FOR PLACEMENT TESTING>>

More and more institutions are administering placement testing (in reading, writing, and/or math) to ALL students upon acceptance to the institution. The results of such testing are used in determining initial placement of students in course work appropriate to their current level of functioning. It allows the institution to identify those students whose poor preparation or skills in these critical areas may interfere with their college work, and to attempt to raise their performance through remedial courses, if necessary, so that they may be competitive in standard course work. Students with disabilities should have appropriate accommodations in taking such examinations. The testing is supposed to determine how well prepared the student is to function in college-level courses. It makes no sense to test a student WITHOUT accommodation if that student will HAVE accommodation in the classroom. But how do you know the student will have accommodation in the classroom? What kind of documentation of disability and need for accommodation should be presented before accommodation is provided for placement testing?

I would suggest that accommodations be provided for placement testing on the basis of minimal documentation. Often this may amount to nothing more than an IEP, a letter from a physician or counselor, or even self-report of need and description of accommodations used in other testing settings. This seems to make sense for two reasons. First, for institutions that are testing hundreds of students prior to the beginning of school every year, the logistics of providing accommodations as needed for those few who are disabled is complicated enough without adding an additional layer of complexity by "credentialling" students to receive accommodation. In other words, just making sure there is adequate notice given of the need for special arrangements is quite enough of a headache for the people who are charged with the responsibility of running the testing program. More importantly however, there is nothing to be gained by someone claiming the need for accommodations who doesn't need or is not eligible to receive them. Let's look at a "worst case" scenario...

Student X has heard that if he claims he has a reading disability, he will be given more time on the reading placement test. He DOESN'T have a reading disability, but when filling out the paperwork to arrange a date for testing, he indicates on the sign-up sheet that he DOES have a reading disability and will need extended time. The institution's policy is to accept such reports at face value and gives Student X time-and-a-half on the placement exam. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that the student's score on the exam is inflated because he had extra time to complete the test (which, by the way, runs contrary to established research that indicates that if the student does not have a disability, the extended time will not significantly improve performance!). Who is harmed by Student X's deception and the institution's flexibility regarding documentation? ONLY Student X. Student X ends up getting placed in a higher level course than his current performance supports and his grade point average, class standing, and college career could conceivably be jeopardized -- but no one else is affected. The institution has not compromised its academic standards or integrity. Placement testing is about student performance, not institutional credibility, and no other student is impacted by the relative placement of Student X.

When I was preparing to teach my first course, while still a doctoral student, my major professor taught me this "truism" which served me well throughout my teaching career: "It is easier to believe that everyone is honest, and function accordingly, than to believe that everyone is out to cheat on everything. You will be taken advantage of less often than if you make it a challenge for students to try to find a way around the system -- and it is a WHOLE lot less work for you!"

One word of caution... it should be made VERY clear during the sign-up process and at the time of the test administration that the provision of accommodation on placement tests does NOT assure that these same accommodations will be made available in the future. In order to verify eligibility for such accommodations on an ongoing basis, the student will need to follow established policy/procedure (you DO have a policy/procedure, right?) regarding the provision of documentation to the appropriate source.

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<< DOCUMENTATION THROUGH SELF-IDENTIFICATION >>

The discussion above has suggested several types of documentation depending upon the "need-to-know There may also be different levels of documentation appropriate based on the REASON for notification. There are times when the reason the individual with a disability is self-identifying is to help the responsible entity by giving adequate notice to assure that preparations are in place -- so that the entity is in compliance! I don't know of any entities that require audiological reports or certification from a hearing aid dealer before allowing access to assistive listening devices for a hard-of-hearing attendee at a movie or play. Conference attendees with disabilities would be outraged (and rightfully so!) if conference planners insisted upon verification from a medical professional or previous service provider before providing Braille, large print, notetakers, or such. Even within your daily functioning as an institution, there are times when insisting on documentation of disability is important, and times when it is IRRELEVANT -- only notification is important. The Financial Aids Office should not be asking to see verification of disability from an authorized source before they willingly provide their information in alternate media on request.

We have all heard stories of students wanting disability parking placards for convenience, or grabbing up tickets in the wheelchair seating section of the basketball arena because of the unobstructed view. But for the most part, the kinds of accommodations necessary for access to campus life are not useful or useable by persons without disabilities and are not likely to be requested inappropriately. Recognizing that fact, institutions have long been in the habit of providing accommodation based on self-identification in many areas of student services or public interactions. While this by no means suggests that such minimal documentation is appropriate in ALL circumstances, perhaps it will serve as a reminder to err on the side of discretion when the words "documentation," "consistency," and "credibility" begin to merge as a single word -- and a single thought -- in our daily routines!

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